The powerful app allows users to navigate around world maps populated with poppies. Under those poppies, you can find the story behind more than 118,000 fallen soldiers, allowing users to connect in a visually stunning way.

For instance, local observers may find interest in a map showing where three soldiers are resting on the Toronto Islands.

Gordon Nicholson Sale and Ivan Samuel Thomson died in 1926 and Frederick Duggan Roddy died in 1942.

The maps show far-flung gravesites as well.

Who knew there are two Canadian soldiers buried in Havana?

Glen Everett Kinney, who died in 1947, and Walter John Loudon, who died in 1921, are resting in Cuba’s Havana (Colon) Cemetery.

Tap to make a selection and their profiles tell you that Kinney served in the Royal Canadian Navy and Loudon in the army.

There is also a pencil icon on the app that allows users to submit more details for each.

The developers expected the map to be Canada-Europe dominated but were taken aback by both the far-flung sites turned up by the data and the density of the locations.

The developers don’t have the burial locations for all Canadian service members. However, from the Boer War through the two World Wars, Korea and the United Nations Peacekeeping missions to Afghanistan, every poppy tells a story.

The app allows you to filter by war or branch of the Armed Forces, search by location, and zoom in to find the gravesites of fallen soldiers.

Individual statistics contain the following information: name, rank, branch, unit, and location of burial site, whether at home or abroad.

There is also a map view containing the last known Canadian addresses of servicemen and women from the Toronto area.

The developers hope to gather this information for every city, town and location in the country.

“We wanted to find a new way to experience the act of remembering,” said Sonia Chai, lead experience designer with Good Digital Culture who created the app.

There is also a crowd-sourcing aspect to this.

Tim Robertson, lead programmer and designer, said it is his hope that the app can expand over time with submissions from a range of users.

Family members, veterans, military and even news organizations are asked to add key information because, the developers say, sometimes the most accurate information comes from the families and loved ones of those who served.

In this way, Robertson said, the app will be relevant not only on Nov. 11, but well beyond.

Robertson said he and Chai had wanted to develop an app of this type for a couple of years.

There is no funding tied to the project. It was a grassroots experiment that they thought they would do on their own to see if people would find this interesting.

“This was a passion project for both of us,” Robertson said.

Added Chai: “We want this to be a living memorial.”

Data was collected from the Commonwealth War Graves Memorial, Veterans Affairs Canada, the work of journalist Patrick Cain and other online sources.

Robertson and Chai said their goal is 20,000 downloads.

The developers have found that major groups who have used the app have highlighted two interesting aspects:

how young the soldiers were when they died and the locations of the burials themselves.

Down the road, they would like to see the app incorporated into the school system as a teaching tool.

“There is an element of discovery (among users),” Chai said. “It’s a different way to remember.”

Her 9-year-old daughter had started asking questions about Remembrance Day and, when she tried the app, her curiosity was piqued.

“It was just really a lovely moment where there was an act of memorializing, but very differently from the way we are traditionally used to,” Chai said.

If there’s enough interest for this project, they will start trying to develop narratives around the locations for next year’s version.

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